


Fuck yeah, that Hollywood lie

by Hannibalistic (Hashilavalamp)



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Awkwardness, M/M, Self-Indulgent, drunken emotional ramblings, fixed that route, fixing my post margarita zone trauma, includes an illustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hashilavalamp/pseuds/Hannibalistic
Summary: When you've spent enough time yearning for somebody, you sometimes become complacent with just taking whatever you can get. The conscience can be so easy to shut up when you try hard enough to enjoy that moment in the sunny fantasy of bliss. But sometimes, it screams just a little too loudly.A rewrite of how that third date with Joseph could have gone without quite the same unpleasant implications.





	Fuck yeah, that Hollywood lie

**Author's Note:**

> Joseph's route was the first one I took and I was honestly put off by how weirdly it was handled and I found myself very dissatisfied with how things ended, with which I am apparently not alone! So I wrote my own version of how I like to imagine how it went down for my MC, Nicholas.  
> I realize I'm probably far from the only person to have done this, but damn it, I needed to put my own thoughts together somehow! So yeah, this is super fucking self-indulgent but I hope the read's enjoyable anyway~

In the entirely hypothetical event of falling in love with a married man, there was only one hypothetical outcome that wouldn’t leave all parties involved feeling kind of morally disgusted with themselves and each other. In this hypothetical scenario, the married couple realizes how utterly broken their marriage is and that things can’t continue this way, so they separate and go on their merry ways, and perhaps the husband would then approach you and say: hey, I’m free to love whoever I want now! And turns out, that person is you! And so you enter a guilt-free and loving relationship, and that’s that.  
Hypothetically.

That was a situation so ideal that Nicholas hadn’t expected to ever encounter it anywhere outside of odd wish-fulfillment movies, so by all means, he should have been ecstatic. Who didn’t dream of living out some Hollywood fantasy when you were at the age where people were usually either married or single for a reason and you had little to cling to but a vague hope? Who didn’t, when the people your age sometimes just raised their eyebrows at cheating in movies and said, _well, that can be worked out. Can’t be too picky anymore you know?_  
What did you have but dreams?  
… Nicholas’ own indulgence in such fantasies had guilty increased since that evening. Since damn Margarita Zone. Something that could have been so easy to laugh at, but since he’d tasted that cliché, he had learned again what it was like to pine for somebody. It started with the stray thought, accumulating over the days and weeks, an ever-growing mountain of thoughts and longings.

But now he honestly felt a little cheated.

Was a little like a built-up in a song that somehow never reached its peak and instead fizzled out with no resolution, only a faint bassline remaining humming in your chest, and you wondered how anyone could compose this damn song without noticing this fatal flaw at some point. Sure the song’s still great, you’re still gonna listen to it over and over until the neighbors want to strangle you, but there’d never be a satisfying conclusion and just leave you with the sense that it could have been greater than it was.  
That. That was kind of what it felt like to have Joseph kiss him now, even when Nicholas reciprocated the touch so readily.

And it wasn’t even because Joseph was a bad kisser. ‘cause he was quite the opposite, and all the circumstances were as fucking perfect as they were ever going to be, so what was the damn problem here. Kissing on a yacht in the evening, tasting wine on each other’s lips and the warmth of the sunlight under their fingertips, and the ring on Joseph’s finger meaningless now, try topping that rose-tinted fantasy. Go on, Hollywood, pale in envy.  

Somewhere between the coast guard’s last words and Joseph leaning in, something must’ve happened. Maybe a wrong movement, a wrong step—ah—something, something…

Kissing Joseph now still felt as wrong as it had felt to dream about it the night after he had met Mary in the bar.

That walk home must have been miserable for her.

 

“Sorry, could you please—“

Nicholas found himself pulling away before he knew it, pushing against Joseph’s chest as he gasped for breath. Because the image of Mary in that booth had lit some kind of spark of understanding that burned in the faults of his mind, fragments of words and thoughts falling into place as an avalanche of things he’d rather not think about. Things that he had hoped would perhaps die along with Joseph’s shipwreck of a marriage because men like himself _couldn’t be too picky_.

But they lived, and hurt and a lack of understanding flashed across Joseph’s face as he took a step back, something guarded in his posture now. “…Have you changed your mind?” he asked, scrutinizing.

“Yes, but also no?” Nicholas replied with a breathless laugh that rang hollow in his sudden anxiety. _I sound like a douchebag._ “It’s not that I don’t want to do this with you, is what I’m trying to say” he tried again, his voice steadier this time but his heart racing uncomfortably as he dug his own grave and watched the crease between Joseph’s brows deepen.  “But I’d like—Okay, I’m not claustrophobic but if we could please get out onto the deck to have a short talk… That’d be swell.”

“That seems fair enough” Joseph responded, just a little clipped, and Nicholas wasn’t sure if it was because Joseph was genuinely irritated or if he was simply flustered and frustrated with the situation now. But he complied, and hey, that’s what mattered most, really.

Nicholas straightened his shirt with clammy hands, momentarily pausing because being flustered was easier than bracing himself for this talk he’d initiated himself, and then dragged himself outside onto the deck. He had to blink against the rays of the setting sun out here where the sky opened up above him into infinity, almost a little blinded as even the polished deck itself reflected the light back at him. Sunlight in his eyes burned, unsurprisingly.

With Joseph’s footsteps just behind him, Nicholas tried to carry himself with as much confidence as he could muster for his own sake. He breathed in the lull of the sea deeply, the salt and the sense of vastness, attempting to trap them in his lungs to calm his hammering heart, and he wished he could appreciate all that a little more. Like earlier this evening, when this was Margarita Zone and not… yeah not whatever he was doing now.

The railing was cool under his hands as he gripped onto it tightly and looked out over the dark waters stubbornly even when drops of water stained his glasses. Staring into the abyss of his fears here. How many fish swam under the waves lapping at the pristine sides of the boat, how many whales deep below their feet. If the yacht spontaneously sunk right now he’d probably end up touching some and whip them into a feeding frenzy. Funny, that seemed way less daunting all of a sudden when there was an unpleasant conversation he had to lead.

“What is it that you want to say?” Joseph called apprehensively, and reluctantly Nicholas turned to face him while still making sure to hold on to the railing for a little bit of support. A pang of guilt nearly made cave in at the resigned expression on Joseph’s face, but he bit his lip and held his chin a little higher, because he liked to think of himself as a better man than this. He could do better than to give in.

“Well.”

Cool, cool. So far so good. He had no fucking clue what he was doing.

Nicholas inhaled as much as his lung capacity allowed it, exhaled. Even without having said anything yet, he was exhausted already.

“I just want to set some things right before we do anything” he ventured, keeping a close eye on the reactions in the other. Joseph stood there, one hand cradling the other carefully in front, a neutral and diplomatic manner of carrying himself; perhaps he was unsure of where to put himself when it wasn’t him who was in charge, or perhaps he was worried that a wrong movement could have a negative impact on whatever Nicholas was going to say.

Which was a sad way to think.

“I just want…”

Nicholas’ shoulders fell a little and his grip loosened despite the tension that coursed through him like an electric current. Even as the words assembled themselves in his mind they already seemed stupid and immature, dripping with insecurity he should have shed decades ago like a skin that no longer fit. But it just fit him all too well, huh.  
As he readied himself to speak, he gestured awkwardly.

“Y’know that… I just want to make sure that you know that a person can’t be your Margarita Zone.”

Nicholas could watch how Joseph’s eyebrows crawled higher on his forehead as the words sunk in and were processed, a confused smile ghosting across his features as disbelief set in. The visible tension in Joseph’s shoulders eased just a little as though relief had just washed over him because like that, it really didn’t sound like much. Just a silly sounding statement that lacked bite, just a blip. Nicholas had to concede that, biting his cheek in frustration at himself.

“Nicholas, I’m quite certain that I can make that distinction” Joseph said, cautiously amused, and Nicholas ran a hand through his wind-tousled hair and cursed the ocean.

“Yeah, I know that sounded weird and I could have probably worded it better on another day, but hear me out” Nicholas tried to remedy the situation and squeezed his eyes shut for a second to put together the mess in his mind. Maybe it would be easier if he couldn’t see Joseph’s face and the innocuous sweater tied around his shoulders. “What I meant by that is that… I have heard of situations like ours so, so _many_ times, from actual people and from all kinds of popular media, which must have their basis in real life somewhere. Think about it yourself – a marriage about to break apart and a husband who swears to a person on the sidelines that he’s leaving his wife - who _hasn’t_ heard this kind of tale, honestly. And for each good ending to the story where everything falls into place, there’s a hundred scenarios where things go awry and it all falls apart in the ugliest ways, where one party or all of them find themselves stewing in misery and-“ And whiskey. In some dimly-lit bar, watching The Game, asking strangers to go home with them. “-and whiskey. And I’d think it’d be great if things wouldn’t go that way but I feel like…”

Nicholas opened his eyes again, feeling himself gaining traction with each word that left his mouth without an awkward stumble. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, to hell with the fact that his ground was not nearly as grounded as the earth, his fingers loosely wound around the metal railing behind him.

 

  


 

 

Joseph took a step forward, opened his mouth, but Nicholas was faster, the wine finally loosening his lead tongue.

 

“I feel like if we rush into this now, then that’s going to be the end of it. ‘Cause even if things are done with Mary _now,_ who knows what things are gonna look like tomorrow, and I’d like to not just be the person you run to for comfort when things are going badly for you” he continued, an edge of accusation bleeding into his tone. He didn’t want to turn this into a game of blame, but something in his heart had been uncorked, some unpleasant fear released that he had known to be there but had been blissful to ignore when he’d set foot on the yacht. It was tiresome to always think the worst. His chest heaved together with his stomach as he exclaimed, ”I don’t want to be your escape from dreary every-day.”

And there the words hung now, louder than they had any business being. The breeze was too mild now, just lightly tugging at hair and fabric, at the sleeves of the sweater.

“…That’s. That’s what I meant by… yeah you know. With that comment on Margarita Zone” Nicholas added lamely into the silence, clutching tighter to his support again as the confidence left him with his breath.

Before him Joseph’s expression had morphed into something Nicholas wasn’t sure how to interpret. That wasn’t quite anger or shock or any of the text book expressions Nicholas was an expert in identifying, it was some strange frown that he struggled to put a name to. Joseph sucked in a breath like a little hiss, lips pressed into a slightly lopsided line and then parting as if Joseph was going to speak but then decided against it. Was nerve-wracking to observe, but Nicholas somehow managed to meet his unreadable gaze.

Until Joseph looked away, troubled in some way, and then clutched his hands together and slowly strolled towards the railing as well, each step heavy with deliberation it seemed. “Okay if I stand here as well?” he inquired easily as he leaned his forearms on the railing and squinted into the sunlight. Nicholas squirmed a little on the inside, conflicted about how well he’d be able to keep up the confrontational attitude like this, however in the end he just shrugged his shoulders in false nonchalance. “Sure.”  
And then he followed Joseph’s example, surveying the ominous waves again instead of having to face the other. Maybe this was actually better anyway.

When no immediate retaliation followed, Nicholas grew restless and warily sneaked in a side-ways glance in Joseph’s direction, his profile handsome as it had been earlier in the evening but now set a little harsher, the clear eyes narrowed and faint lines dug into the skin. Anxious but impatient, Nicholas pursed his lips and wrung his hands a little, wondering if a tuna could manage to jump out of the water and bite off his hands dangling over the edge of the railing. That’d be an adventurous sailor’s story, wouldn’t it be.  
_Hey sailor._

“Is this what you think you mean to me?” Joseph eventually said, nearly quietly enough for a gust of wind to carry it away, and yet it was like the vibration of the cadences tugged right on one of Nicholas’ heart strings, transporting the sound so much surer than the air. “Do you feel like I’ve been using you?” 

“I don’t know!” Nicholas admitted, tearing at a hangnail a little too harshly so a sharp needle pain stabbed at the nail bed. If that wasn’t begging for an infection later. “That’s why I brought this up in the first place. Because I can speculate all I want and fabricate some story about how you’re a real life villain, whatever, that’s not gonna lead anywhere. I want to discuss it, like an adult should.”

Next to him, Joseph turned his head to the side to look at him with furrowed brows. His face seemed a little paler despite the golden glow of the evening sun, so grim despite the pretense of casualness he’d displayed at first; exactly the kind of look Nicholas hated to see.  
“So there is enough doubt for you to voice such a concern.”

“There’s a lot of things tying you--“

“What do you think I should do then?” Joseph interjected before Nicholas could explain himself, angry now. Angry or desperate. “I already left to live on this yacht, what more should I do, what do you suggest? Do you think I can just drop everything on the spot and make great promises  to sail the world with you—Nicholas, I don’t know what you want me to do to prove to you that I am serious, but I’m not just going to throw everything overboard if that is what you are asking of me! I care about the life I’ve built up here, I’ve invested too much work in it to forsake it like this, that’s not the person I am anymore. And I didn’t think you of all people would be unfair about it.”

Joseph’s eyes reflected hurt, but the aggressive undercurrent in his voice still let Nicholas’ temper flare in turn as the scales were just about to tip from debate to argument. Too sad that things devolved into this kind of thing all too quickly, but Nicholas was only half as patient as he wished to be and no amount of understanding would numb the sting of Joseph’s words.  
His expression twisting in incredulity, he shot Joseph a glare.

“Woah woah, stop right there!” he said, lifting his chin a little higher again and standing just a little straighter to disguise how much he wanted to be the weaker man. “I’m- not asking you to ditch everything for me, I’d… No, I’d never. I don’t ask you to do anything for _me_. Least of all would I want to see you throw away the things that you hold dear, because – and I know this sounds wild - I actually really like you, and one of the reasons for that is that you care a whole damn lot and I’d have to be a real asshole to demand you change something about that but I’d also have to be quite the douchebag to squeeze myself into the equation? Do you get what I mean?”

Nicholas wasn’t sure _he_ even understood what he was saying, his thoughts faster than his own brain now where before they had stubbornly refused to let themselves be boxed into words. And maybe Nicholas’ glasses were smudged, but Joseph’s face seemed a bit blurry to him, the fuzzy image searing itself into the forefront of his thoughts, among the imprinted images of Mary leaning against the bar, getting drunk to wash the taste of toxicity down, Robert in the sweater that lay as a hanged man’s noose around Joseph’s neck.  Oh fuck. Sad shit. Sad shit.

“Trust me, I’d rather we did anything else than have this conversation but yeah! I just worry, maybe a little too much, but… I don’t want to put you in a position where you end up doing something you regret later just because that seems like a pretty hot idea right now. Hot in several senses of the word, please.” Nicholas chuckled at his own joke more because he was tipsy and so high-strung at the moment than because of any true mirth. He didn’t wait to check Joseph’s reaction this time. “Mary’s… She’s a genuinely cool person once you get past the, what, fifty layers of bitterness, and you two must’ve had something that connected you once. I know you don’t want to hurt her, ‘cause you’re overly concerned with the emotional states of others, Mr Counselor, and your kids are great too, wonderful sense of humor they got there. It’s picturesque to the point that it enters uncanny valley, although: I appreciate your dedication to the aesthetic. And I believe you when you say that things are unsalvageable. I do. But looking at all these things, can you see why I’m in a bit of a moral pickle here? I don’t want to get in the way of your sorting these things out, and I don’t want to be another bullet for Mary to shoot at you if you decide to do try things again. I have to be absolutely sure of this, and so do you.”

At last Nicholas allowed himself to take another deep breath, his oxygen-deprived lungs rejoicing but his stomach twisting itself in knots that no mere sailor could tie. Or untie. His guts would just have to stay like this.

Oh, the only advantage to the situation was that Nicholas was certain the volume of his voice had scared off all fish in vicinity.

Nice.

Goosebumps rose along the skin of his underarms as the first cool breeze blew and it the urge to roll down his sleeves itched. And Nicholas obstinately kept his posture anyway, the physical discomfort pushed to the back of his mind as he more sensed than saw Joseph ready for his counterattack.

“Mr Counselor? I think it is currently you who is attempting to counsel me” Joseph began, a strain to his voice as he obviously tried to lift the gloomy mood with a false smile. Was kind of a painful sight actually. “I did consider making that my profession back in high school actually, keen eye you got there” Nicholas fired back with the same cautious and unsteady humor, the corners of his mouth protesting against the grin he forced them into. “Though this is less me counseling you, as much as it is me rattling off whatever is coming to mind in a hurry. Counseling involves less panic I’ve been told.”

“You do sound rather… affected” Joseph responded, suddenly moving closer. The world slowed down for that fraction of a second, that blink of an eye, the wind picking up again. Their elbows nearly bumped together from how they stood then, Joseph’s hand dangling next to Nicholas’ own, close to touching. It looked like Joseph was about to take his hand in a soothing gesture, and Nicholas hoped he would. And then Joseph crossed his arms, perched on the railing, radiating guilt.

“I’m always like this” Nicholas deadpanned and then broke out of character again to hastily adjust his glasses that were in danger of slipping down the bridge of his nose.

“You really are a horrible liar. All this time that I’d given the benefit of the doubt, and yet with all the goodwill I have towards you I can simply deny it no longer” Joseph tried to pick up the teasing again, and a weak snicker escaped Nicholas. Welp, not like it was a secret. “But to be more serious. And to maybe tie this back in with Margarita Zone… I did tell you back then how close I’ve always been to this kind of thing. I think I got riled up just now precisely because you reminded me of just _how_ close. All these things, Mary, the kids… You know that sometimes I’ve wanted to just cast it all aside to pursue the life I used to have. I want you to be wrong about me, but maybe you understand me better than I’d like. If I think about it, then staying with my family is much harder than it would be for me to leave with you right now.”

The laughter trapped in Nicholas windpipe died, the truth anticipated and yet hitting a little harder than he would have liked. Red pooled where he had ripped off the hangnail and right now he felt disgusting enough to just lick the blood off.  
Didn’t, though. Just let it keep bleeding, waiting for the first drop to fall into the ocean as a sacrificial offering for the apex predators circling below.

Nicholas nodded and exhaled, raising his brows. “Well, I appreciate your honesty. And you know, maybe I am wrong! But not about you, but about what I said that evening.”

“What do you mean?”

“That maybe I was kind of an idiot when I essentially told you to endure for the sake of enjoying the moments of peace more. At least partially incorrect. Okay, what I’m about to say is not supposed to be offensive but—“

Nicholas caught the very alarmed look that entered Joseph’s perfectly scandalized expression. “Oh my, you may not want to finish that sentence. With all due respect – nobody who’s every prefaced a statement with ‘not to be offensive but’ has ever not said something wildly offensive…!”

“—I’m gonna finish this sentence, yeah” Nicholas soldiered on undeterred, the wine once again making it easier to let out the words and painting a wry smirk on his lips. “Judge me as you will. I was raised in a very much atheist household and Manda was very insistent I don’t get weird about the religion thing, however, I have to make a couple of assumptions here. And my main assumption is that Christians have this unsettling reverence of enduring terrible circumstances or repenting for past wrongdoing for the rest of your life, and this hell-bent dedication to make themselves martyrs for everything. Or maybe that’s not a Christianity thing, but it’s most _definitely_ a Joseph Christiansen thing! You talk of wanting to escape all the pressure of the life you’re living, but at the same time you seem pretty horrified of the person you used to be. As if as soon as the trappings of this life disappear, you’re going to revert back to that state no matter what, and like you need to flagellate yourself until the end of times to make up for what you’ve done and to ensure you never become that person again. Because you care a whole damn lot. Assumption correct? I’m gonna assume that it is. Anyway, ha, I think that this line of thinking is at the root of it all. You’re not some ticking time bomb, for Christ’s sake!”

At this point Nicholas was sure that he was losing his mind and probably spoke more patronizingly than any preacher. Hey, with any luck Joseph would think that was attractive somehow. _Please let him not hate it at least._

“The problem is that you’ve become so _obsessed_ with dedicating your life to some picturesque ideal that you twisted it beyond what a human can actually endure! You look for escapes everywhere because this thing you’ve built up is just not feasible!  I don’t know what kind of stuff you were up to in your youth that you have to compensate so wildly for it, but I’m sure you won’t fall apart now if you don’t go back to your marriage with Mary. Because yeah, things don’t have to be perfect, but they don’t have to be so miserable either! That’s where I was wrong! You don’t just have to endure everything else in your life, there’s always ways to optimize your way of living! Maybe you and Mary just aren’t meant to be married, not due to any inherent flaw to either of you. I—I admire you for how much you care, but I honestly admired you even more when you told me you and Mary have decided to break it off because that’s the most responsible decision you could have made, for yourselves, for your kids, for your community! I mean, sure, there was some selfish glee on my part, but I’m just a human too. I was just _also_ genuinely happy for you as well!”

Without the railing, Nicholas was sure he would have just jumped into the ocean then and there, so close to Joseph in distance but feeling like he’d overstepped a million boundaries with the hundreds of things he’d thought of late at night whenever he considered his moral dilemma so that he’d put ravines and faults between them, putting Joseph out of reach no matter what.  
In the distance, a sea gull cried.  
“I…I finish my pledge with a more concise summary: you can still be Joseph Christiansen, king of the grill and therefore my heart, coolest youth minister that this nation has ever seen, without having to maintain a toxic environment for the people you love. Separating doesn’t mean losing your family, and living without unnecessary torment isn’t going to turn you into some slob. Nobody is going to think worse of you for making a healthy decision. I think.”

And mercifully, the sea swallowed the silence that followed his plea. Had never thought the crashing of waves and the phantom sense of spray on his skin would be so soothing to him as it was then and there, the faint distant feeling of the waves pushing against the boat so welcome.

Joseph whistled.

“How long exactly have you been meaning to say all this?”

Nicholas pulled himself out of the little vortex of self-loathing he’d slipped into when Joseph’s voice was soft in his ear and a warm hand brushed against his own, nearly holding on. Such a healthy complexion next to his own.

“That was a spontaneous performance, I’m afraid. Consisting of things I’ve been mulling over for far too long to be fair, spontaneous nonetheless though. Fuck. Fuck-- I’m so sorry for, uh, lecturing at you. …About your own life. …And potentially misrepresenting your religion. This was—“

“That was perhaps the most honest anyone has been with me in a while without intending to vilify me, so I think it would be more appropriate if I thanked you at this point” Joseph cut the rambling off, a slight tremble to his tone, so blurry vision be damned, Nicholas squinted to catch whatever feeling it was now that dominated Joseph’s features.  
Nicholas was nearly choking on his own heart already anyway, it couldn’t get worse.

And Joseph.

Joseph smiled.

It was the smile of a man that tasted a bitter truth, but a smile alright, laugh lines clearly visible.

“It was preachy.”

“And I’m a forgiving man, lucky you. Especially of the somewhat excessive swearing towards the end there.”

It must have been the ease of the little back and forth between them, but Nicholas was overcome with a relief so strong it all but knocked the wind out of him then and there. Arguments were deceptive in how sometimes it seemed like things were over but in reality it was just the beginning and that moment of levity had just been some fluke, pulling at his sanity like the tides and eroding his constancy, but this felt real now, final. Like Joseph wasn’t going to argue any further, trying to prove to himself that the only future that could make him happy was going to back to his personal hell.  
Amazing feeling.

With slightly weak knees, Nicholas took off his glasses and bend over until his forehead rested on the top bar of the metal railing and he relished fully in the coolness against his way too warm skin, firmly holding on to the second bar with his free hand because something as simple as standing? All of a sudden very exhausting. He was getting old for sure.

Damn Joseph managed to maintain a much better figure. It was a cosmic unfairness that even now, when Nicholas was almost on his knees from an emotional punch in the gut, Joseph could rest comfortably by the railing with the wind trying in vain to ruffle his hairspray-protected hair with such a mature look of contemplation on his face.

He sounded kind but awkward when he said “I may look calm right now, but I assure you that this is solely because having four children trains you in this kind of thing”, and a chuckle that Nicholas could swear was tinged with embarrassment rang out. “You held up remarkably throughout this though! I feel like a great counselor was lost with you.”

Nicholas lifted his head so quickly that his vision swam quite unpleasantly for a second just to give Joseph another incredulous look but his face had this way of refusing to emote at all when he was exhausted enough, so he was certain he looked like a grim mask of death right now. “Thanks. I’m five seconds away from puking my guts out, but thanks.”

Joseph’s laughter was genuine now, deep and rich. Hopefully as relieved as Nicholas felt, half hung over the edge of the boat and pale and shaking, but so endlessly relieved all the same. Nicholas didn’t even notice himself joining in, not until the moment that something caught in his throat and he really did empty his stomach a grand total of three times into the water down below and Joseph made an alarmed noise at his side, placing a hand right between Nicholas’ shoulder blades and carefully taking the glasses from him so he didn’t crush them with the contractions of his poor stomach.

When the nausea eventually subsided, cold sweat ran down the side of Nicholas’ face and his insides seemed to be on fire. A word vomit followed by actual vomit, hey, that was definitely poetic to somebody out there. Joseph laughed at that remark too.

“Remind me not to mix wine and emotional honesty next time” Nicholas wheezed, taking an offered tissue to wipe at the corners of his mouth. “If I ever do this again, you are free to… what would you sailors do… keelhaul me?”

That expression of faux shock again. “And risk having a whale come after you? That would frankly be cruel of me. And now that I think about it, probably constitutes as manslaughter. Amanda would have me killed before I could even bring forth my defense.”

“Oh, there’s no defense that could ever protect you against her wrath, trust me. A prison sentence would be much kinder to you than what Amanda might do to you if you allowed a whale to kill me” Nicholas responded, accepting the help when Joseph graciously extended his hand to help him lie down on one of the recliners on the deck. Didn’t really want to let go of that hand.

“Careful, that might spiral into a blood feud.”

“You say that as if anyone could take on Amanda. Christian and Christie might have the proper horror aesthetic going for them, but they don’t stand a chance in the end.”

Lying like this was heaps better than awkwardly abusing a yacht railing as support against a little alcohol-induced emotional rant that you subjected your romantic interest to. The oranges and yellows of the evening sky were making way for the darker hues of the night and Nicholas’ tired eyes were grateful for the subdued inks, helping to reinforce the notion that he’d made it through. His stomach still twisted around itself in random intervals, vying for attention greedily. Nicholas breathed slow and steady.

This was unexpectedly nice, although some part of himself whispered that he should have kept his mouth shut and taken what he could instead of trying to play advisor. Lying between twisted sheets with hands and mouths too busy to hurt instead of lying on the deck, trying to get the taste of puke out of his mouth, and a whole lecture too much between Joseph and himself. Fuck yeah. That could have been the life. The Hollywood life with a torrid love affair, forever doomed.  
And yet he’d chosen this.  
And yet he was strangely content.

Joseph propped himself up on one arm and leaned over to whisper in his ear that although he was (mostly) safe from whales and tuna on board, now that night was falling, surely the sea gulls would be looking for a place to rest. And which man didn’t carry the fear of God in his heart when confronted with tired and hungry se gulls?

(Margarita Zone.)

At some point when the air was becoming too freezing for it to still be pleasant, Joseph disappeared under deck to prepare a sleeping place. Nicholas would get the bed.  
Was an unkind reminder for Nicholas that life was still a thing and he’d have to look the coast guard in the eyes in the morning, the people who’d heard barely half of it but enough to draw incorrect conclusions. Oh yeah, and that he had absolutely no idea where he stood now with Joseph.

When Joseph returned with a glass of water for Nicholas (using the wine glass from earlier, how classy), Nicholas couldn’t help but hold on to Joseph’s wrist briefly, reluctant in releasing him.

“Thanks” Nicholas mumbled lamely.

“Thank you too” Joseph said, a half-smile half-frown on his face that Nicholas could just barely make out without his glasses and the lack of proper lighting. If only his eyes hadn’t betrayed him and could actually see sharp up close without some dumb lenses shoved in front of his eye balls. Joseph lingered, not turning his back on him just yet. Questioning.  
“But can I ask why you sometimes spoke as if Mary and I were still together? Or as if it was certain I would go back to her?”

“Had to cover all bases” was the curt response. “I just have the feeling that this isn’t the first time you’re at these crossroads and I wanted to make sure that I caught all potential scenarios in my lecture. I wasn’t trying to give you the feeling that you are now stuck with me or Mary or anyone. You’re free to do now whatever works best for you.”

“Hm. I think I understand. You don’t happen to have any previous experience with this kind of situation, do you?”

“Nah. To break that rule of not talking about how weird it is that you got four kids and how my wife is dead – Alex and I had a pretty peaceful arrangement. I loved her. Didn’t love her like a husband usually loves his wife, as I realized eventually, but she understood when I told her. We had each other’s back through it all and stayed together. Sorry if that sounds like bragging.”

A moment of silence, Joseph flinching and Nicholas cursing how talkative he was like this. A stone rolled in his stomach at the thought of Alex, at the thought that she could have felt like Mary perhaps if things had played out just a bit differently.

“Wow, now I remember why we made the rule of not talking about this. Eugh. Let’s rewind on this conversation please.”

 “It’s, uhm. A little awkward, indeed. Oh, let me smoothly change the topic to something trivial! I have another question actually! If you hadn’t given me that lecture… would you have slept with me?”

“Oh heavens no!”

“What—“

“You keep mentioning ‘strumming on your six strings’ but I’ve never actually heard you play. If you ask me that is highly suspicious and I’m beginning to think that you are in reality not capable of such action. This would render you a mere empty Jimmy Buffet fraud, attempting to lure me in with false promises of authentic island jams. Trying to seduce me in such a way is flattering but you understand that I cannot in good conscience go to bed with such a man?”

“Absolutely, you got me there. I’ll just have to prove it to you some day then.”

…

…

“And I’ll think about what you said, Nicholas.”

 

* * *

 

 

Morning came too early and unbidden, bringing with it the noise of intrusive sunshine, Nicholas’ fears, and the coast guard giving him and Joseph looks that would have been highly scandalizing if the night had taken another path. Nicholas met the looks brazenly, trying to see if the men could be deterred that way.

(They could not. Fearless men and women in the coast guard. Or just utterly shameless.)

Joseph bore it with that winning smile like he bore everything else that he falsely made his own responsibilities in his martyrdom. Nicholas could only hope that he’d see that die one day. He much preferred the distressed glances Joseph kept giving when nobody was looking, alive with the sparks of real emotion. Communication that needed no words.

Warmth resided in Nicholas’ chest when he got on his way home, the feeling of Joseph’s lips in goodbye lingering on his own, the taste of a tentative hope better than the wine. Whatever would become of their future, he had gotten almost everything off of his chest, which was a victory in its own right.  
One day he might hear the whole story, all the nightmares that lived in Joseph’s skull. Or maybe he’d just get to see Joseph fall back into the same old grind. Or maybe patch things up properly, who knew!

Nicholas just knew that he could get used to sailing one day.


End file.
